Wednesday, July 07, 2010

Top 5 Video Game Maps

Sacred MapsAncaria is a magical continent populated by various races of dark elf, wood elf and vampires. Luckily teams of cartographers have now traversed and mapped the vast desert and lava-ridden plains in the south and the mountains of the north.

Sacred is an action role-playing game for Microsoft Windows. Using Google Maps and some custom map tiles someone has created two Google Maps mashups of the game world.

The Google Maps API v2 Map of Ancaria includes map markers showing the locations of employees in the game. The new Google Maps API v3 Map of Anacaria shows the locations of all the game dungeons.

IGN have used image tiles from the static GTA IV Liberty City map to create an interactive map using the Google Maps API. The map includes a large number of selectable layers organised into different categories; Points Of Interest, Restaurants, Shopping, Services, Entertainment and Nightlife, Emergency Services, Missions, Items, Vehicles, Secrets, Multiplayer and NPCs.

Registered users of the site are able to add markers to the map by right clicking on the map and logging in. This should mean that the map will become more and more detailed over time.

World of Warcraft MapThis Google Map created for World of Warcraft includes quick links to common locations and options to show the locations of herbs, treasure, ore and other game elements.

ViwogeoViwogeo is an interesting idea to let you explore Second Life locations via a Google Map. Many of the locations on Second Life are recreations of real world places and Viwogeo makes use of this fact to geo-tag these Second Life locations on a Google Map.

Clicking on one of the map markers opens an information window with links to that location on Gridaverse (see below) and a link that will teleport you straight to the location on Second Life.

Via: Ogle EarthGridaverseGridaverse is a set of interactive maps that use the Google Maps API to present maps of Second Life.

Using the maps it is possible to search for sims, land for sale and easily create GVURLs (a link that will transport you to a location on Second Life).

Apparently there are a lot more features coming soon, including GPS and short GVURLs, with the ultimate goal of creating a search engine for all the different Metaverses on Second Life.